6 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Ignore the Power of Email Marketing

January 14th 2021 | By Sarah McInerney

Is email marketing still important? Does it have a future? Well, put it this way. There are around 4 billion email users worldwide. That means over 50 per cent of the global population is using email. And, in 2020, 75 per cent of all UK internet users said they sent and received emails. Quite an audience! So, is email marketing still worth doing? Absolutely yes! Creating a targeted email marketing strategy can be a powerful way to increase sales, without breaking the bank. Let’s take a closer look then at why email marketing is important, with a few bonus tips on how to get the most out of it.

Email marketing can be one of the most effective ways to engage with clients and customers. To nurture leads. To reach new audiences. It’s also easy to measure, makes it possible to target specific sectors, and doesn’t cost a fortune.

The importance of email marketing really is worth stressing. Here are six good reasons why you can’t afford to ignore its potential as a highly effective element of your digital marketing toolkit.

1.     Email marketing is a vital relationship building tool

Whether you’re targeting leads, prospects, or clients past or present, email is a fantastic way to build relationships. It’s also a great way to widen your audience too.

Email has been around for some time now, which means it’s been widely adopted as a means of day to day communication. Pretty much as soon as you hear that ping on your phone, you’re checking your mail to see what’s appeared in your inbox. And if you like what you see, it’s highly probable you’ll click through a link, take up an offer or forward the email on to someone you think might like it too. It’s all become a natural reflex.

Whatever way you look at it, people engage with emails. For this reason, it’s the ideal way to build relationships.

Whether you want to reassure your customers that you’re still around and ready to serve no matter what the current situation may be, you want to introduce them to your latest product or service, or introduce a new member of staff, email is a failsafe channel through which to ‘talk’ to your audience, and to strengthen the bond you have.

2.     Email marketing is affordable

Because email marketing is one of the lowest cost strategies, it delivers one of the highest returns on investment (ROI). Even the smallest budget is usually able to stretch to an e-marketing campaign.

Whilst you may need to engage the help of a digital marketing agency to get you set up with an email marketing platform, design you a template for your mailings and possibly produce content for your campaigns, the costs involved are likely to be relatively low in comparison to other forms of marketing.

There are some email marketing platforms, such as Mailchimp, that allow you to send a limited number of emails every month without charge. Even the paid-for plans aren’t overly expensive. Campaign Monitor for example starts at just $9 per month, and Zoho Campaigns is even cheaper, at just $5 per month.

If you’re a WordPress user, take a look at MailPoet. This is an email marketing plugin specifically designed for WordPress websites. It lets you quickly add content and images directly from your media library, and automatically send email updates to let subscribers to your blog know about your latest posts. And the best bit? It’s forever free up to 1,000 subscribers.

Just a note to make sure you do your homework when choosing email marketing software, because features and send limits can vary quite substantially. Here’s a useful email software comparison resource we’ve found that’s a good place to start.

MailPoet from WordPress, forever free up to 1,000 subscribers.

3.     Email marketing can be automated

The whole email marketing process can be automated, which is great news when it comes to freeing up your valuable time. It’s also great news for targeted, timely email marketing too.

By using triggers and workflows, you can automatically send messages to your subscribers once they’ve taken a specific action. This might be, for example, abandoning a shopping cart, downloading a free guide or signing up for a webinar. It’s all about seizing opportunities, without making the whole process labour-intensive. You literally just let the email marketing software do all the work for you.

You can also set up an automated email series designed to nurture leads within a sales funnel, with set events such as making a purchase or arranging an appointment automatically bringing the emails to a close, or directing subscribers to a new email series.

4.     Email marketing is a breeze to measure

There is little point to any marketing campaign unless you are measuring its success. And it couldn’t be easier to measure how your email campaigns are performing.

Email marketing software is very good at delivering useful analytics. Who opened your mail? Did they click any of your links? Did they meet your conversion goal? You can also see who unsubscribed from your list. All this is highly valuable information that allows you to analyse how effective your campaigns are, so you can make any necessary changes if needs be.

Some email software also allows you to perform split testing, so you can see which parts of your campaigns are delivering the best results. Testing subject lines, different offers or calls to action are some of the favourites here.

5.     Email marketing boosts brand awareness

Staying in touch with your audience allows you to reinforce your brand, and email is one of the best ways to do just that.

Regular (but not too regular) emails will keep you in the mind of your customers. And the emails don’t always have to be sales related. In fact, the whole sell-sell-sell thing isn’t a great approach, especially for brand building. So strike a balance. Mix in some human stuff. A run-down of your latest fundraising efforts perhaps. Something fun or interesting related to what you do.

If you’re in finance for example, perhaps some helpful hints on completing a tax return. Jewellers could share tips on cleaning up a tarnished treasure. Home insurers on taking care of a property in winter. Spring decorating ideas from a homewares retailer. Just remember, it’s not only about the sales, but more about making and maintaining a connection.

6.     Email marketing lets you send targeted messaging

Email is one of the best ways to nurture leads. Within your sales pipeline, you’ll have prospects at different stages of the purchase cycle. Segmenting these leads will allow you to target the right people with the right messaging, gently ushering them along to the next stage of the cycle, and ultimately, to your end goal.

It’s also possible to segment audiences according to buying patterns. So for example, you may have customers who purchase certain lines, so when you introduce a new product associated with what they’ve bought in the past, you can target them specifically.

Email targeting also helps you avoid dicey situations. What could be worse than receiving an email encouraging you to sign up for something you already signed up for last week? This kind of mis-targeting can do a great deal of damage, potentially losing that customer who now feels unappreciated.

Targeted messaging gets optimal results. And avoids dicey situations.

Bonus: Top tips for email marketing success

Hopefully we’ve done a good job of explaining why email marketing is important, and you’ve picked up a few e-marketing tips reading through so far. But just before you go, here’s a handful of e-marketing take-aways to think about:

• Pay attention to your email subject line – it’s just as important, if not more important, than the main content in your email. You’re going to need something compelling to get people to open and read the mail. A cliff-hanger is always a good strategy, holding something back so your readers are desperate to learn more. Be sure to keep it short though, so it doesn’t cut off on mobile. And don’t forget to split test different versions to see which works best.

• Make use of pre-header text – an enticing pre-header text boosts open rates. Most email marketing software allows you to include a short intro that will appear just under the subject line, as a preview on mobile. This is your best shot at grabbing attention so your email gets read, so be sure to optimise it as best you can.

• Define your goals – we’ve talked about measuring the success of your email marketing campaigns, but if you don’t know what you’re measuring against, you won’t see whether you’re doing great, or not so great. So, set yourself some goals. Whether you’re looking to boost engagement and build your brand, encourage people to read a new blog post, or you want to get enquiries flowing in or nail a sale, it’s important to know what you’re aiming for.

• Optimise for mobile – always remember there’s a strong likelihood that your emails are being read on a mobile device. So be sure to check how they look on a device other than desktop. Remember that too much scrolling can become tiresome, so keep things to the point, and nice and easy to navigate too.

Tailored expertise from the digital marketing agency London businesses trust to boost sales

Looking to boost engagement with your audience, increase online visibility and grow your sales? At Figment, we’ve been working with London and Surrey businesses for many years, formulating winning digital marketing strategies that are proven to get results.

To learn how working together could make a difference to your business, you are welcome to get in touch.